A guide to surviving student accommodation
My daughter has finally secured dry, warm, clean accommodation for September as she starts an MA in UCC. Following viewing, she actually skipped back down the street. We were discussing other places her college friends had not just lived in for one year, but clung to desperately for their entire degree. “Well, mum — they are all mouldy”. My usually confident girl had viewed one apartment that was so dark, rank and depressing, she called me sobbing and asked haltingly — “I’m torn, should I just take it?”. Students are among the most maligned group of short-term tenants, and they know it.I soon realised that the days of my bedside survival — the chilblains, bruised blue walls and two doses of walking pneumonia were far from over. It turns out that sealed in behind double glazing and without Victorian draughts, keeping the air relatively fresh, for some students under the care of a careless landlord, things were worse — far worse. The mapping of mould is something many students are forced to weigh as they tramp the city and pursue empty promises online. Students don’t have the same security of tenure rights as other renters, and are usually bound by a fixed-term letting agreement. These should not exceed 41 weeks, and students cannot be forced into renting over a summer. Inexperienced youngsters in grubby slums are so genuinely grateful to have anywhere to stay within an asses’ roar of college, the ongoing anxiety surrounding keeping their home is distressing. Within the round of campus accommodation or pricey student complexes (student-specific accommodation), there’s more freedom to complain, because frankly, it’s a maintenance team, not a familiar disgruntled puss, or a ringing out mobile number.Basic protections I’m going to go over surviving a less-than-ideal off-campus student rental over two features. To start, let’s talk about the non-negotiable things that put students at risk. First up is renting from an unregistered landlord. Every person or entity renting out accommodation in Ireland (bar rent-a-room or “digs”) must, by law, be registered annually with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). Flouting this can draw an initial penalty of €4,000. As a tenant, you must have a proper letting agreement, signed by both parties, for the duration of the rental. If you side-step these basic protections, with little to no legal recourse, you’re trusting a great deal to the character of a property owner. Even with RTB registration, the recovery of deposits and the addressing of material issues in the house or flat can be frustrating. The RTB advise: “The Local Authority where your tenancy is located can conduct inspections and is responsible for making sure your accommodation meets the minimum standards. If a landlord does not provide the basic requirements, they may be prosecuted. “ House condition Moving on, let’s talk about damp, mould and other issues surrounding sensory comfort. In many outwardly scruffy homes, if the house is reasonably “dry” with a properly serviced central-heating system, you’ll have a good measure of control over the micro-climate of each room. However, there are chronic matters that you cannot fix and that fall within the responsibilities of an RTB-registered landlord. These are damp problems caused by moisture penetrating the structure (not created by the inhabitants), inadequate ventilation and insufficient heating. No heavy curtain, scrub down, electric blanket, or cracked window will resolve that signature tackiness in the air. Mould is, in simple terms, a biological entity that “eats” moisture and dirt and it often parties with fungus and other bacterial mysteries. You can think of it as a plant. It needs a damp, humid environment to thrive. It can be caused by even small amounts of migrating or trickling moisture getting into the building (say through a crack in the render that bubbles up through the paintwork in your rooms). Slack habits around a rental can introduce or intensify a mould issue, but the landlord has a responsibility to provide an intrinsically dry house with adequate heating. Picture: iStockSmall amounts of mould can also be nurtured and even introduced by bad lifestyle habits, which keep the air heavy with water droplets that will settle on cool walls. It can float in the window or be carried in on your shoes, and it's highly active in the heating surges typical to student lets.In the first instance, there are structural issues, probably a small break in the envelope of the building, a pipe leak or rising damp. This is the landlord’s sole area. The property will need repair, the walls scraped down, background ventilation must be addressed, and the rooms redecorated. Painting active mould with damp-stoppers or emulsion is utterly useless, and in the chaos of a multi-tenant house, it can grow back out of sight. If a mattress, carpeting or soft furnishings shows signs of rampant mould — they should be replaced. The spores are living inside the foam, pile and ticking. In the second instance, if there are small areas of dark stippling confined to, say, a corner or two, we can do some murderous wiping. Don’t do anything that splinters the stipulations of your lease. Cleaning off spots of mould from walls can be carried out with a commercial spray or with a mixture of bicarbonate and water. With super-flat old matt, this could leave cloudy stains. Talk to the landlord or agent first.Students are often blamed for the mould in their accommodation, and lax, ropy housekeeping can make a bad situation worse. Mould is the close companion of condensation — excess moisture beading up on the windowsill and/or fogging glass. It’s important to understand how homes “breathe” and when to alert their landlord to miserable problems that could also be damaging lungs, plaster, wood and fabrics. Now — the art of ventilation. Every habitable room depends on air exchanges that freshen the air regularly during the day and night. Generally, the air should be turned over at least once per hour (up to 4 times in a working bathroom or kitchen). Background ventilation is delivered a number of ways, including passive wall vents, small trickle vents in the window frames and by mechanical means (electrical fans, typically seen in bathrooms and kitchens). It’s imperative not to interfere with background and mechanical ventilation by closing wall vents, for example. Airing bedrooms by opening windows is not a cute 20th-century eccentricity, and where security allows you should regularly air your room using “purge ventilation” even during the winter for 5-10 minutes a day. Don’t dry your clothes in your bedroom on radiators or clothes racks (the influencer hacks drive me up the walls). Without open windows in a sunny room, this practice introduces a level of moisture to the air that the background ventilation cannot handle. The results could green up the contents of your wardrobe (which should also be ventilated and aired regularly – don’t crowd cupboards). If you don’t have a working mechanical extractor in your windowless shower room or kitchen, mould is inevitable. Contact your landlord — this is firmly their responsibility.
A reputable person will want to know, and there should be no threat to a rental deposit. The key thing is for both sides is to prevent these issues taking off in the first place. If there is an issue that’s not reported and worsens, the landlord is likely to complain that the damage falls back on the tenants to some extent. Outward signs of chronic faults must be brought to the person letting the property or their management agent in writing. Black mould can cause not only respiratory distress but Aspergillus Niger can do actual neurological damage. It’s a dire air pollutant. In a short let of 40 weeks and looking towards the following September, it’s intimidating to contact the RTB. Still, trapped in a contract with months to go and no action, it may be the only way forward. If you do decide to take on accommodation with small amounts of visible mould, make a photographic record and ask if repairs, cleaning and decoration is scheduled. If the mould returns or you notice persistent musty smells when the heating goes on in October or discoloured paintwork (presuming you’re working diligently with available background and mechanical ventilation) — get in touch with the landlord. They have a legal responsibility to fix the problem within a reasonable time.
All students can apply for Dispute Resolution with the RTB even if their landlord has not registered their tenancy. For more advice go to threshold.ie. In Part 2 of surviving SSA accommodation, we’ll cover housekeeping savvy: Heating, more air quality, storage and the ultimate powers of a dry, warm bed.
www.rtb.ie
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